Browsing: African Development Bank

The African Development Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) program agreed to partner with the African Guarantee Fund (AGF) to provide $1.3 to 2 billion in loans to women-owned Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Africa, by working with financial institutions to enhance their ability to lend to women.

This comes after the launch of AFAWA’s Guarantee for Growth (G4G) program whose objective is to make available up to $3 billion in financing for women entrepreneurs through de-risking and technical assistance measures. Financial institutions in  Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are signing on to the program.

“As the implementing partner of AFAWA’s Guarantee for Growth program, we are already observing an increased appetite from banks for this innovative product that seeks to support women entrepreneurs. We have recently signed agreements with leading banks on the continent who are keen to increase their …

More than half of the population in 34 out of 38 sub-Saharan Africa nations lack access to basic handwashing facilities. …

In August 2020, Mali had a bloodless coup carried out by military officers leading to the country’s President Ibraham Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse resigning.

The coup came after months of protests against Keita’s administration. 

News like this has dominated the country’s narrative but little has been said about its economy and growth. 

According to the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Mali’s economy has remained resilient despite the security crisis.  The West African country recorded a 5 per cent real GDP growth in 2019 driven by favourable gold and cotton production. It had a budget deficit of 3.1 per cent of GDP and 0.4 per cent inflation while public debt stood at 35.5 per cent of the GDP at the end of 2018.…

Cocoa plantations, which are the backbone of the world’s chocolate supply, are highly vulnerable to climate hazards.…

Until early 2019, Omar al-Bashir was the President of Sudan after holding the position from June 30, 1989, to April 11, 2019.

For the three decades he was president, the country had not witnessed an uprising over food in the scale as huge, and widespread until 2018 when the country erupted in violence over the price of bread.

So dire was the need for bread which was unavailable that people could go for days without bread. Not because they could not afford it but because it was simply not there.

Read: Will digital agriculture bring economic development to Africa?

This scenario sounds like a scene from a movie but it is the reality facing many African countries.

The lack of food is getting worse every passing year due to several factors including poor seeds and the ravaging effects of climate change and soil degradation. With the continent whose agriculture is …

The East African Community (EAC) has a combined population of 168.5 million people…

Tanzania’s largest power source is natural gas.…

The government of Uganda and The African Development Bank signed an agreement worth $500,000 to finance Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) so as to boost business linkages on the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Technical Assistance project.

The bank will contribute the funds through the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA) while the Government of Uganda through the Petroleum Authority will provide counterpart funding. A similar project is also being finalised in Tanzania.

The key objective of the grant is to help develop the capacity of local Uganda MSMEs along the East African crude oil pipeline by helping them to build linkages with larger, national, regional and international companies as well as accessing new market opportunities.

The project aims to create an estimated 500 jobs along the pipeline and support inclusive private sector growth.

According to the African development bank, “the grant was provided in response to a …

China’s foreign ministry says that the origin of Africa’s debt problem is complex with each country’s debt profile varying.…

The trade finance gap remains unacceptably high at US$81 billion as of 2019.…